More than 27 million passengers flew from Spanish airports during the first three months of 2026. According to data provided by AirHelp, approximately one in three flights, or 34.4%, was delayed or cancelled. This disruption affected nearly nine million travellers.
In the first quarter of 2025, more than 82% of flights departed on schedule, which cut the number of affected passengers in half to 4.6 million.
Despite the widespread lack of punctuality, only 185,000 passengers are entitled to compensation.
Most punctual airports and those with the worst delays
According to AirHelp’s analysis, which considers airports with more than 200 scheduled flights per month, passengers departing from Asturias have been the luckiest. Of the 159,000 travellers who took a flight from Asturias, 81.6% departed on time. Close behind, Granada-Jaén and Ibiza airports rank as the second and third best in the first quarter of the year, with on‑time rates of 79.7% and 74.6% respectively.
By contrast, passengers at the airports of La Palma, Santiago de Compostela and Ceuta were not so fortunate. These airports recorded the worst figures for the first part of the year, with on‑time rates of 36.8%, 44.3% and 47.2% respectively.
AirHelp has also analysed the performance of Spain’s two main airports, Madrid and Barcelona, which together account for 46% of passenger traffic in the country. Madrid handled 6.8 million passengers, while Barcelona served 5.5 million. Of these, only 66.3% departed on time in Madrid, and 68.9% in Barcelona.
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